syrup in the mouth, salt on the lips

Elton John’s I’m still standing was playing. It was packed with the college students and young professional when we arrived there. Bacchus; a spit and sawdust pub. I was with Aicha; my three fortnights old girlfriend. She was wearing a pale micro-mini and was looking goddamn sexy with her strawberry red panty beneath it. Aicha has a deliciously idiosyncratic dressing sense; she hates everything mainstream. Sometimes I think may be I’m also some weird counter-culture product but then I always fuck her in normal biological manner; never I’ve been a pervert with her. It was our first visit to any pub. We always meet at libraries’ and museums’ gardens. I hate those places; especially the watchmen and masturbating teenagers and old men hiding under vines.
Aicha was dancing. I saw her dancing for the first time. Her buttocks were damn bouncing. I noticed them for the first time. They were heavy, strong and bubbly. I imagined of dimples on them. Its delight to have a girlfriend with a dimpled butts. I wrote that in my cell phone’s note-pad. I’ll ask her to dance naked for me. I’ll kiss her buttock’s dimple next time. she was dancing smack-bang in the middle of dancing crowd. When DJ changed the song with Mica Penniman’s Life in cartoon motion’s some song; she stopped for a beer. I was having my regular gin dose. I like gin. I don’t know why? But I like them as I like girls. May be it is just because of their first same syllable. Gin makes me more of man. I like rum too; but then I’m a goddam alcoholic. Rum makes me remember of a good healthy cunt. I’m fucking pornographic sometimes.
Aicha drank beer in a sip and returned to the floor. She was feeling very energetic. She was on some pill. Anti-depressant or something. She takes too many pills; contraceptives, anti-depressants, anti-oxidant and calcium channel blocker. She is a migraine patient. I used to take anti-depressant but then it makes me feel soft in the head. On those tablets I don’t like having sex every eight hours and I used to take too much time to have ejaculation. I chucked them off. I can’t fuck a girl for one damn hour without an ejaculation. It can work for the jerks with pre-mature ejaculation. Sometimes you just want to come. Its like sometimes when you want to die.
I joined her after a fifteen or twenty minutes. We danced till eleven twenty or forty five and left. We were feeling hungry like Ethiopians. We headed to Platinum Grill ; a mainstream and damn costly restaurant. Aicha was against coming over there but it was the only open one near her place. I asked for asparagus’s salad and some obscure continental mutton thing. She asked for a bowl of pasta salad with mint and a sweet-corn soup. I also asked for chicken soup. Interiors were designed around platinum color and were quite corny. Lightings were cheaply romantic but marble patch-work floor was quite decent. Food was crap. Mutton thing was made with frozen mutton and was awful. Chicken soup seemed toxic to Aicha and I haven’t eaten it. Asparagus salad was the only thing which was edible.
‘Asparagus is aphrodisiacs ’ Aicha said.
‘may be chicken soup is sedative.’
‘why?’
‘Because you don’t want me to eat. You want me to wake all the night and screw you.’
‘screw me all the night and screw me hard.’ She grinned.
‘I like your pornographic replies.’
We ate and paid the bill. When we were leaving without leaving any tips for the waiters; suddenly a man in a threadbare scarlet plaid coat arrived. When he introduced himself as a chef at the restaurant; I feel like giving him damn knuckle sandwich.
‘Yours is the last meal I’ve prepared. I’m retiring today.’
He was dressed as twit and was barefoot.
‘From now onwards I’ll work in a hospital canteen. Soups, juices and such other stuffs.’
‘It will do good for you. You cook crap.’ Aicha said. I felt goddamn upset for him. Aicha is fucking blunt sometimes. It was his last meal at the eatery.
‘I’m very sorry ma’am. I got jitters today. I purpose you to take your money back.’
‘Is it possible?’ Aicha was behaving like a bitch at that witching hour.
‘Why not? It will be deducted from my salary.’
‘No prob man. Lets go Aicha.’
‘But your owner should pay us back because when you cook good; he takes the profit.’ Aicha said. I was dying to sniff her quiff and push her bush.
‘Lets go.’
She turned and came with me. she burbled in my left ear, ‘ don’t worry, I’ll put my lipstick on your dipstick tonight.’
‘I love you.’ At least for this hour.
Street was empty. She gave me a good butt slap and I felt a kick inside me. I tried to kiss on her neck. She ran away.
‘I’m hunkie.’ She screamed.
‘I liked that food Aicha. It was fulfilling.’ I said involuntarily.
‘Unlucky you! Now you’ll never have his fulfilling stuff again.’
‘How can you say that? Do you remember he said that he is going to work in some sickbay canteen. May be someday I’ll get sick and have his stuff.’
‘Do you want to have his food again?’
‘I want to have his food once more. He doesn’t cook crap.’
‘Why are we discussing him instead of discussing my boobs?’
I hugged her.
‘Lets go lickety spilt to home. I want to jump on you.’
‘Me too wanna a long juke dude.’ Her cream-jugs were bouncing.
‘But lets go to some chemist first. I want to buy some pills.’
She said and walked very fast towards left.
‘Fucking chemist.’
‘Fucking you.’
‘Fucking you the pill-popper.’
It was twelve fifteen and hardly any chemist’s shop was open for her. I brought a beer can from an all-night convenience store and was sipping it. It was pretty dark but that goddam gin was fucking strong and I was feeling dutch courage. I was not that sissy to be scared of loafing with my piece of tail at some silly dark hours of night. Aicha saw a half-opened chemist’s shop. ‘Life-counter chemists’ was written on neon signboard. It might be a junker’s spot or something.
‘Prozac; 40mg.’ Aicha said while stooping down.
We were seeing only two legs in black and white stripy woolen bull ants, plain maroon socks and a pair of some vintage odd monkstrap shoes. And a dark wood stick.
I was snuggling her and she burrowed her face into my chest. She was tumbling ripe. Hot and breathing hard.
‘Where is the prescription?’ chemist asked and came outside. He was a man of seventy five or eighty wearing a leather hat and thick glasses, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
‘I don’t have prescription just now. Its at my place.’ Aicha has no prescription; anywhere in the world. She pops such pills on her own. Chemists shrugged his sagging shoulders and said as if exhausted of day’s work ,
‘In that case its not possible.’
‘what if I pay just double the amount?’
‘Are you some junky or what? You’re wasting my time ma’am.’ Aicha ruffled his feathers.
‘Please sir. Can’t you do a little favour.’ I asked. I was in hurry.
‘Excuse me please. I’ve many things to do.’ He returned to his half closed shop again humming some old crap country tune.
Aicha got panicky. ‘I need those fucking pills Kunal.’
‘Lets go to home now and I’ll bring you those pills at daybreak.’
That bastard chemist has upset the applecart by refusing to give us those damn pills. From nowhere chemist came again and said, ‘Well I can give you those pills if you do me a favor.’
‘I’m ready to do any favor.’ Aicha said like a highway hooker and junk-hog. I never thought that even anti-depressants are addictive. He went inside and came with an old English sheep dog. Dog was barking on us. Or was he howling? I still don’t know.
‘Keep this for ever.’ He said mewling.
‘We can’t.’ I hated that goddam dog from the first sight.
‘I’ll take care of him.’ Aicha was speaking poppycock.
‘His name is Hypnos. He is lovely by nature and look at him he is beautiful too.’ Chemist was waxing lyrical about his dog.
‘I’m ready to take care of him. How old is he?’ Aicha was damn bitch.
‘Just three years old. isn’t he splendid?’ He said.
‘But why do you want us to take care of him?’ I asked edgily.
He took a long pause and said, ‘Coz I’m going to commit suicide.
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m not saying anything bizarre. Have you never heard of anything like suicide?’
‘I should call police or someone Aicha.’ I felt uneasy.
‘Let me die peacefully gentleman.’ He was mewling and said slowly.
‘Why do you want to commit suicide?’ Aicha asked in a cool but slurping voice.
‘I’m fed up with life. That’s all.’
‘We all are fed up with life but are still living.’ I said. I found my reply very odd. Is this me saying this?
‘Then lets come with me and we’ll have group suicide. I’m scared of it too; doing it alone. Company will make things easier.’ I was damn terrified at his reply. He looked like a ghoul to me.
‘We want to live. Give me the pills and be sure I’ll take care of Hypnos very well.’ Aicha said; she was in high spirits.
‘Okay, okay.’ He was happy. ‘I’m bringing your pills.’
He went inside again. I was pissed off. I said nothing. Aicha kissed the tip of my nose. He gave a pack of ten pills and some dog biscuits to Aicha.
‘Please don’t take more than sixty mg of these pills a day darling. I want you people to live. You’re good chaps.’ He was quavering and said bye to us. We left and I was walking very fast.
‘Don’t give him more than four biscuits a day. Hypnos is greedy in his food habits.’ He said and laughed.
Aicha always smells of ginger. I asked, ‘are you made with gingers?’
‘Are you nuts?’
‘You smell of ginger.’
She laughed said, ‘I don’t like gingers and you smell of garlic.’
‘do I?’
‘But I like garlic.’
‘Do you love me Aicha?’
‘I don’t know.’ She chuckled. ‘sometimes you smell of onions too.’
‘Do you like onions too?’ Now being smelled of onions doesn’t sound good to my nose; if it can hear.
‘Of course I like onions.’
It was hushed; we were listening to our own ears. Hypnos was also quiet as dead. The curled moon seemed to look as if it would fall down in a moment or two. We passed a so-called haunted building called Philosopher’s cave. Some music band was practicing there; a song Syrup in the mouth, salt on the lips was in the winds in a sad, slightly effeminate male voice. There were beers’ cans, burnt cigarettes and bread crumbs scattered around the gate.
‘Singing Philosophers are practicing.’ I told her; she was as quiet as mouse.
‘Its like having sex with a sick and dying person.’
‘Sometimes I love to fuck a sick and dying girl.’
‘I’m not liking their lyric.’
‘Lets go to my place.’ I want to take her at my bed; it was more comfortable.
‘why?’
‘Because you’re as lovely as yourself.’ I said idiotically.
‘Okay.’
Aicha tied Hypnos to the gate. I unlocked the doors. It was warm. I opened windows. Far somewhere Thelonious monk was been playing. we drank water and she popped pills. In my bedroom my sister Jyotsna was sleeping. she was wearing a frilled frock and it was ruffled in a way that her vagina was showing. She was seven years old.
‘Lets go to your place Aicha.’ I said. ‘But how can we leave Jyotsha alone.’ I was confused.
‘Where is she? I can’t see anyone.’ She said.
‘She on my bed.’
‘You’re having hallucinations.’
‘She is here. Look she is a child. We can’t fuck here. She even hasn’t developed a fig yet.’
Aicha rubbed hairs on my chest and said, ‘fuck me.’ She bit my right ear. ‘Fuck me.’ Her collarbones were as hot as red hot iron rods. ‘Fuck me.’ Her heartbeats were as quirky as Thelonious monk’s piano. ‘Fuck me fast.’ She was scrubbing her shoulders to my two days stubble. ‘Please fuck me.’ Our hands were in each other for so long that we were unable to make it out whether which is our hand and which is other’s. ‘Fuck me.’ I was licking her palate with my tongue. ‘Fuck me.’
‘Aicha’ I said but she stopped me and sucked my teeth.
‘I will only fuck you on the condition that you will be as quiet as cat during the act.’
‘Whatever.’
She made faint noises ‘Mew miao’ like a cat.
I fucked her hard on floor. ‘Mew miao’’
Hynos was barking. He confused Aicha’s moans with a cat. After orgasm I cried for my cat. Queekwee was her name. She died long ago; when I was eleven years old.
‘You’re my Queekwee.’

somewhere near the capital

She is butt whore. Although I’m fucking misogynist but I like giving cunts my stubborn saint peter. I met her in my regular skirt patrol in pub called Hallucination; she was wearing a tight white jeans and onion purple t-shirt without bra. I asked her name but she just refused saying that she doesn’t tell her name to strangers. My belly was full of laughing soup and I was pretty hard. I just grabbed her ass and spanked her cool.’
They were talking while walking towards Infoventure solutions, their office. One of them was wearing a pair of low waist jeans with his brief’s strap showing and a yellow t-shirt. His old tennis snickers were full of crap and all. He was holding a brand new Ipod in his left hand and was smoking. Other one was having long, dirty and stinky hairs and he was wearing a blue and brown gingham half sleeves shirt with a faded pair of jeans. He was holding plastic glass of some shit multinational café chain full of black coffee. He was sharing cigarette with the other one. Although it was not loud but I know somehow that there was Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing playing in arteries of his brain. He was sissy, scared of Aids and addict to pussies. Somehow I know they were both commerce graduates and were working at the call centre named Infoventure solutions.
‘Then she gave me a tough time dude; made a scene there. Damn slut. Her boyfriend with his quisby buddies made me almost kiss the dust.’
The man in yellow t-shirt then ruffled his short hair a bit and showed him the marks of stitches he has.
‘Mother fuckers.’
The other one said. I don’t know why.
‘I can bet Yogesh that pussy hasn’t tasted cream yet. She was fucking cherry. Those guys were just fags. Her butts were as hot as hell.’
Yogesh just tried to imagine her butts. Big, chubby, round and paradise to spank at.
‘Are you still dating that whore?’
‘Oh no she is menstruating fifteen days a month. Bitch.
‘Hehe’
‘Haha’
‘This job is screwing my brain like a drill machine.’ He said to Yogesh.
‘I need this job dude.’
‘Our life is like a common sewer.’
‘It worst than that; at least sewer flows sometimes. We are damn stuck in this shit.’
The guy with yellow t-shirt showed his identity card to the watchman. He was Jagdhish Sharma, a call centre executive, aged twenty-four. I managed to read it. His address was 107, Dilpasand apartments, MG road.
They both entered the place. It was air-conditioned building. Cool, cruel and impersonal. I hate offices, especially corporate offices but I felt fantastic there as if I’m on my daily Ecstasy pill. Then I got a kick of morphine. I saw Manushi Shrivastav. She was wearing a mini skirt. Her legs were screaming that they got waxed yesterday. My Manushi! She knew that I’ll come today and she got her legs waxed for me. She grinned. She was staring Yogesh. Jagdish laughed and went to the loo
There, then somehow I felt sure that Jagdish is going to fix her plumbing. And this is not some flamdoodle of some unemployed zombie like me. This is his, her and my destiny. Each and every girl here is a jazz baby. Yogesh was staring at her jelly-on-spring breast like a hungry gorilla. It was ten thirty pm. They all sat on their cabins with a computer, phone and a table watch on their desk. They started speaking to whitey jerks selling their things and listening to their garbage mouth. Shit I dream of such a job.
After fifteen or twenty {during dark the sense of time get blurred} minutes, I got bored. I thought of having my happy dust and a good hand job in the ladies’ walk. It was vacant except a young girl in a new pair of jeans and a little and brown leather handbag in her hand. She was seeing herself in the mirror and making faces. She was as ugly as my ass. I saw her before somewhere. Oh she is Naina the one who was eating worms in the blood at that Italian restaurant where even a pizza without cheese costs a bank. She was a cockteaser. She used to work in bank where she got raped by her two coworkers but never filed any report against them with the cops. Everyone now knows that is how she got deflowered. What she was doing here? Perhaps she has started her cockteasing here but that can be fatal to her and guys during these nocturnal hours. Happy dust made me fainted or slept or whatever.
Suddenly I woke up seeing Jagdhish and Manushi in their birthday suits belly to belly. Then I saw them in doggy position. I felt disgusted, erect and melancholic at the same shit of time. I jerked off and left that room. Everywhere you find people full of credit cards, condoms and crap and all. I decided to go home and view any cartoon channel. I like Courage the cowardly dog, Cow and Chicken, Sheep in the city. I hate every other thing. I saw Yogesh speaking in an artificial accent,
‘Ma’am ma’am.’ And all that shit they speak.
I’m not any fag or something but I felt bad for Yogesh. All and everyone are knocking front and back doors of his girl and he the pissbilly even doesn’t know about this fucking business. He has sent her hundred of sms saying, ‘love love you lots and lots like jelly tots. Hehe.’ He was a spring chicken. A love spoon. He always deserved a square skirt and got this street sister but why I’m fucking mosquitoes talking about him. This is not that dim bulb’s joke.
It was sunup. They were coming outside. Cold, stiff, cranberry eyed and full of dark circles. I saw Yogesh and that bed bunny {sometimes she even doesn’t need a bed also.} Manushi talking in some blanked chain café.
He asked, ‘ are you coming for the party today.’
It was all slobber for her.
‘No. I’m not coming.’
‘We’ll have booby funk and fun.’ He was a lovebucket.
‘I’m pregnant and planning to get rid of embryo.’
‘But we can marry.’ He spoke like a goofer.
She pissed off. ‘I don’t want to marry. Its not your thing Yogesh.’
‘Huh. I always knew. I always knew that you’re a fucking whore.’
‘Mind your language.’ She shouted. Every pair of eyes there turned to them.
He took his Ipod and left.
I returned to my place and slept till noon. I ate noodles and bathed with some smelled-good bathing salt; I’ve shoplifted from a department store. I felt a deep screwing melancholy. I’m having no job, bra-buster cunt not even a big-bam-thank-you ma’am sort of thing, no money. Everything is buncombe for me. I lit a coffin nail and smoked for long. I saw all the pornographic DVDs and read every bumfodder fiction; I was having. At nine thirty I got up; dressed and left for the pub Hallucination.
They were drunk as skunk and they danced till one thirty am. There were rumors that there is absinthe in the party.
‘Cool beans!’ Yogesh said.
They all drank. It was a fake one. Yogesh was dancing wild with a skag who had biggest sit-upons in the pub. He was planning to thread her needle. I was standing like a fop-doodle. He asked for rum from the waiter who was dandily dressed, pink pants type and a kook.
He offered Yogesh some energy drink to blend it with rum.
Yogesh mixed his glass of jungle juice with that drink. He felt his heart beats fast and hard and started breaking the floor. Velvet underground’s ‘I can’t stand it’ was been playing. DJ had remixed it with an African shit and it was giving those nongs a hard time to dance on. I was playing pocket pool at the corner seeing so many pieces of ass there. The biggest sit-upons was bouncing slow but her posteriors were creating a musical and sexual tantrums. Everyone went bonkers.
Yogesh; sweaty, tired but ecstatic , running out bloody life juices suddenly collapsed on the floor. Disco-lightings were flashing on him sadistically and guitar in the song was giving him an eargasm.
‘ Death is like a big shoot off dude.’ The longest big O. the ultimate ejaculation.
No one stopped. Jagdhish and Arav took Yogesh to the hospital but they were silly shuttle-heads. They should take him to the bone-yard. I decided not to follow him; after all I’m not a fart-catcher like God. I continued enjoying moving buttocks and bosoms of slick chicks and dumb caterpillars. Lightings were now violent and music was attacking ears like nazis.
I drank soda-lime, swallowed pills but hangover was killing me. There was only a good thing about that morning. A dream. Now may be I can get a job at Yogesh’s place. He died of over exhaustion, shattered illusions and pink elephants but I was determined to live.
They rejected me because of my damn Indian accent. I’m still out-of-work. But so what I don’t give even half a fuck.

Eating movies

1
Dr. Rita was jumping with joy. She got the job at Corn & Sugar Bakery. Due to healthy lifestyle of people at Mhow, rarely Dr. Dr. Rita has patient in her dental clinic. She was in financial soup. Her bakery’s bill was roaring high. She was a lover of waffles, pancakes and muffins. She herself was the most frequent visitor to Dr. Dante for getting her cavities filled and root canal treatments. Now she thought she will have money to burn. Although a penny saved is a penny earned but then bakery products won’t break the bank however she also knew that unlike others she was a penny-foolish and pound-wise. Now She can also afford French fries and burgers every day as Corn & Sugar people give concession to their employees. The life thus was joyous, delicious and plump for her.
She also decided to gift a huge strawberry cake to Umber; apple of her life. She felt then how much she adores Umber. He is like salsa sauce for the tortillas of her dreams. All of a sudden she decided to sell her cell phone and buy the cake for him with the money. Strawberry cakes are pure delight. Not only strawberry cakes but any and everything made with strawberries like strawberry shake, strawberry ice cream and just simple plain strawberries with cream on them.
And she hates cell phones; they are constant pain in the ears, mouth and palms. Also who calls her? None. Although she knew that she will be needing cell phones to make their dates’ plans and deciding meeting joints with Umber but then letters are more romantic. Economical too.
She felt vibrations in her bag. She felt scared. That might be Motto; an ugly, fat and gluttonous mouse that is nagging her for days and today she has some salted cashew nuts in her bag. She made her mind up to kill that Motto if he would’ve eaten her nuts.
It was a phone call. Mr. Jevan Gupta was calling her. Enough of toothache he had. He wanted to have a denture.
‘Okay, Mr. Gupta come to my office tomorrow at nine am.’
‘Look Ms. Dr. Rita I’m a poor man and can’t pay more than two hundred rupees.’
Although it was a smallest amount anyone can pay for a denture but then Mr. Gupta was now his coworker at the bakery and also the biggest strawberry cake costs two hundred rupees precisely for Corn & Sugar bakery employees. She nodded on the amount.
2
Laughing on others’ disease is an inhumane thing to do but Guptas were laughing stock for the Mhow. Oldest of Guptas was Mrs. Omni Gupta; she was thirty-seven years old and a patient of Down syndrome. She was having two sons and a daughter. All of them were mockingly suffering from Progeria; a disease of accelerated aging. The eldest Mr. Rishabh Gupta was just nineteen years old but due to his wrinkled chicks, haggard nose and tiny jaw; he used to look like a seventy-six years old man. He was on the verge of dying. His sister Dolly Gupta was two years younger to him. Old and exhausted; she was also seemed to look waiting for death. Youngest brother Jevan Gupta have seen just sixteen springs on the earth but there was a very weak chance for him to see more of the rains, summers and springs of this earth. He used to look oldest among three ill-fated, rare, poor and funny siblings.
But then they were having a good job at Corn & Sugar bakery, their lovely {baby} mama and a cute little bungalow named Philosopher’s cave.
‘Now this is too much! I’ve lost my front tooth today.’
Jevan was horror-struck and gloomy.
‘That might be your milk tooth baby.’ Dolly said.
‘They don’t ache Doll.’
Suddenly he started sobbing. He was feeling helpless and hopeless.
‘Now everyone will make joke of me. I don’t want to go outside. I don’t want to work and see people.’
‘Don’t you like that bubbly girl who comes in evening to buy potato chips and lollipops.’
‘So what? What will I do meeting her? I make her feel scared. She hates me.’
‘She will like you some day.’
Jevan lifted his almost blind eyes; soaked his tears and saw Dolly.
3
His favorite song is ‘the blower’s daughter’ of Damien Rice. After the death of Gypsy, he became a loner and a poet. We can’t understand his melancholy because we’re human beings and he is a dog.
His name is Hypnos. He is an ashen color old English sheep dog. Gypsy was Mr. Joy Pastrywalah’s fawn Doberman Bitch. She died in a car accident. Some people say that Mr. Mr. Joy Pastrywalah himself killed her with his old depleted Fiat car because she used to eat breads and cream rolls from the bakery. She was becoming fat, shoplifter and lazy. What he didn’t know was that she was in love.
Hypnos sometimes thinks {if dogs really think!} about her. Gypsy’s fawn color in his memory sometimes makes him feel like it’s evening all the time. The air now lacks light. It also lacks warmth; warmth of Gypsy’s heavy breathing. Her little eyes see him in his dreams. He sleeps not more than six minutes at a time and dreams for thirty seconds. Thus he sees her for thirty seconds every two-hour. That is what he is left with.
Umber is writing a novel on Hypnos and Gypsy’s love. He feels it difficult to write because how can a human being think in a way dogs think. He even doesn’t know whether they think or not but then they certainly love. And when you’re young and fuck a girl every other day or night and want to fuck her every three hours; love is certainly the only significant reason to write.
Hypnos has stopped eating. He drinks few drops of milk a day. That too he has stopped for last day. He tries to sleep more and more now. He doesn’t want to open his eyes. He is becoming obscure and eccentric. He barks on none. He doesn’t sniff anything now; not Queekwee, coriander, queen of puddings or Guptas’ old age.
His masters the cyberpunk brothers are unaware of his situation. They’re busy all the day and half of night in computers, digital games, pornography and homosexual activities. One of them is suffering from aids and doesn’t know about it. They are stereotyped. The other brother sometimes sings late night, Bjork’s ‘its in our hands’ and cries cynically. Ms. Anna wants to know why he cries?
4
Umber sends a SMS to Ms. Anna,
‘You’re spinning in my blood now. You’re the windmill of my life. The source of all my lights and water.’
Not satisfied with his SMS, he sends her a new one,
‘Where’re you?
And wherever you’re, why are you there instead of under my thighs.’
Ms. Anna was ignoring Umber’s messages. She was packing brown breads for an old man. He was looking like Ernest Hemingway and acting like a nervous housewife. She said to the buyer,
‘Twenty two rupees for four hundred grams.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t pay. Please give me some discount.’
‘We don’t give concession Mister’
‘But Queekwee doesn’t eat anything else expect these brown breads.’
‘But you’ve never been here before?’
‘Its because before my wife used to bake brown breads; unfortunately she died day before yesterday.’
‘Oh I’m sorry.’
‘Can’t you give me discount?’
‘I can’t but you can ask owner of the bakery. He is sitting there.’
Ms. Anna asked the buyer to go the right hand side of the bakery. Mr. Joy Pastrywalah was kneading dough there in his faded Capri and destroyed vest. He was talking to himself.
The buyer returned and said,
‘Your boss is very ill mannered. He not only declined to give me concession but also called me an idiot.’
‘I can’t give you discount but I’ll come over to your place and bake some brown breads for Queekwee. She is pretty cat.’
‘I can’t believe you; you’re a fairy and how do you know Queekwee.’
‘I’ve seen her with your wife. Take these two loaves. Where is your home?’
‘Its on fourth street near Philosopher’s cave.’
I’ll be there in evening seven pm sharp.’
‘But what about the money.’
‘Oh no, in couple of days you yourself will be an expert baker.’
‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’ He started mewling like an infant.
‘Now hurry up. Queekwee is hungry and wait for me. Do you have wheat flour in your store.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll buy everything.’
‘Bye and don’t cry. Take care.’
5
It was two past fifteen at night and Laila was eating potato curry with steamed rice. She was weary and whimpering. She drank a glass of rum and scribbled flowers on a wet and tattered paper napkin. She dyed her lips with cherry color lip-gloss and wore a leather skirt with a pale blue scarf and mauve ribbons. Black stockings and cheap stiletto completed her disgraceful appearance. At last she perfumed herself with the strongest cologne brought from a cheap massage parlor.
She was still weeping.
She saw the stars and a moon from her balcony. She climbed on the quaint and rusted iron railings and jumped. For first few spilt seconds she felt scared but afterwards she was flying. First her head dashed against rocks of the road. Her breast got torn with iron wires lying there. She died within eighteen minutes. Her skirt slashed and her chubby, scratched thighs were exposed. She was having hundreds of stretch marks on them. There was all garbage around her. Some of her blood was been soaking up by some used sanitary napkins thrown up there.
But she was looking relieved and content.
She was fat and grotesque. Her father raped her. Her lover made her a whore. And at last when she was in her mid forties and struggling for her bread; she fell for an androgynous guy. He was a gay but she hadn’t fallen for him for sex. She just loved him. He was considerate. He was suffering from Aids and she couldn’t see him dying. She therefore died. Now she doesn’t need to find customers for her shabby and loose cunt. She now doesn’t need breads and clothes and a roof.
Police reported that she has committed suicide during one to three am. A suicide note was found out which reads that she is committing suicide because now she is unemployed and she is a lesbian and she has tortured herself too much by being a whore and getting fucked by alcoholics and delinquents. She can’t take men now.
What police didn’t know was that she was raped after her death and someone has written a suicide note for her.
6
He lifted her checkered gingham skirt and snuffled her. She smelled of Cummins’ seeds, moisturizer and herself. It was humid there. He waited for Cherry color nipples, a lecherous tongue and tang between her thighs for two long days. Two days is the longest distance he can bear from her. They cow-kissed. He tickled, fucked her like a rattlesnake.
She sighed, ‘screw me politely.’
He tittered because he was ticklish. She was delicate and she howled. He felt her like a pink cabbage. Or a pickled onion. He tasted her everywhere. She was vinegary, salty, tartaric, bitter, sugary everywhere and bland at her sole. They slept for long. The noon was long, gray. He ate a green apple and left.
She thought about him all the evening and missed him terribly at night. She had her supper alone on a couch. She ate two tangerines and drank a cup of cold milk. Life was sad, beautiful and quiet for her.
She bathed for long before retiring to the bed and touched her huge rotting grapes like nipples. There was some twinge.
He slept all evening on his mommy’s bed and ate corns in supper. He dreamt of her during night and woke up suddenly when he saw her died of an accident when she was going to the bakery on her bicycle. He instantly wrote her a letter asking her not to go to bakery on bicycle and kept it under his pillow. He also thought of buying her a pink doll with scarlet hair, which he saw in Toyshop yesterday while returning from the library. Mommy sewed a white skirt with pale blue lace all night. She is a bit deaf and now she is really going to be blind. His mother was too eccentric to be called normal. He was happy in his home without any window. It was having a door painted in cobalt blue.
continued.

Some characters haunt in different stories 1

‘I’ve a daydream’
Tina said; her eyes were shut.
‘You know your eyes differ in color; left eye has a tint of lapis lazuli and right one is turquoise.’
‘My eyes are not blue. They are dark brown.’
‘But you can’t see your own eyes. Mirror shows just a reflection and may be its brown.’
‘Umber will you listen to my dream?’
‘Okay they are pink.’
‘Is it possible to have pink eyes!’
‘It’s a my dream of the day.’
‘A dream of an idiot.’
‘It’s fulfilled. You tell me about yours. I hope its not your old one; sailing on Day-Glo boat towards cloud nine’
‘Its my nocturnal dream not a reverie.’
‘Suddenly I’ve a new daydream that you are flying kites in the rain.’
‘You want me to go out.’ Tina acted of being irate.
‘I’m all ears’
Tina grinned ear to ear.
‘Cupid blew a raspberry at me and ran away.’
Umber hasn’t answered. He was curling her pubic hairs.
She said ‘your eyes are scarlet.’
Her eyelids were drooping; he let her drop into slumber.

Knocks on the doors were dulcet as if made with drumsticks.
‘Who’s there?’ Umber asked while wearing his tartan boxer.
‘Me Bablu’
‘Then why are you playing dulcimer there? Just come in’
‘I don’t want to see both of you naked’
‘Naked! Only she is. I’m dressed.’

Bablu entered into 102 philosophers’ cave building. Apartment was old, cold and Furniture was sturdy.
Bablu was cool but edgy, twenty-four or five years old man working in some bizarre bureau which opens only at nocturnal hours; obsessed with suicide notes, stealing beauties, Popeye, scarlet striped cats and 69.
There was a mark above his slightly huge nose near his left eyebrow; of seven stitches he had in his early adolescence during a wooden swords duel.

Queekwee, their nuts and marmalade cat was lolloping and bopping around Bablu.
Umber was now slouching on the sofa started smoking a cigarette.
‘Is she sleeping?’ Bablu asked. Umber nodded.

Tina was napping on a single bed. She was naked except wearing an antique dream catcher pendant around her neck. Her sour and swollen breasts, like pair of over ripe lemons were springing up and back. She was a slice of juicy, fat and sun burnt grapefruit. Bablu felt an urge to suck her engorged, furred cunt. It was like a thick cut piece of a kiwi.

‘Have you made it or it all got spoiled due to me? Bablu asked.
‘We don’t wait for the mornings.’
‘You both are ruined.’ He smiled.
‘We need tea and breakfast Bablu.’ Tina said. She was standing behind Bablu. Bare and ruffled.
Bablu turned and kissed her right away on her mouth and shoulders and belly. She fell on the single bed again dead on her feet. She was lying on her belly. Bablu made a huge bite mark on her bruised butt. Queekwee was licking her right foot. Mew Miao.
‘I should make tea for us.’ Bablu said while moving away from her.
‘She has destroyed me and only a cup of tea can make me again.’

Bablu found out tealeaves hidden underneath odds and ends in the cupboard.
‘How much sugar?’ he shouted.
‘Two and a half spoon of sugar, just a spoon of leaves and a cup of milk.’ Tina answered.
‘We’re left with only a spoon of milk’ Bablu was pouring last drops of milk into the kettle.
‘I drank all the milk last night.’ It was Umber’s voice.
‘What?’ they both said in chorus.
‘Don’t people die of starvation?’
‘They also die of punches and blows.’ Bablu illustrated anger as an amateur theatre artist.
‘At least they die with a belly full of food. Its bless to have food when you’re hungry.’ Umber’s voice was much more theatrical and animated.
Bablu brought a lemon slashed from a citrus plant placed in the balcony.
We’ll have lemon tea today.’ He said.
‘ O no I’m having her sour flavor all the night; I want something syrupy like original Indian tea.’ Umber protested.

Tea was catastrophic.

2
There were dangling jars in the lanai with seasonal creepers drooping. It’s been Umber’s trade to water them. There were also lemon, basil, rose and china orange shrubbery to clinch seasons to zephyrs. It was twelve noon. Bablu and Tina were cooking.
Tina was wearing a cherry chiffon skirt with a sallow country chemise and a silk scarf with thousands of tints and dyes. There were several azure and mauve ribbons tying her charcoal tresses. China clay beads adored her collar full of amorous marks. She was heavy-eyed and tired. She was flickering after some Bablu’s droll say.
‘Mew miao’ Queekwee has snuffled coriander, her favorite. Her tongue was tickling and eyes were twisted in her old and known loony manner. Her funnily flamboyant furs were flying in the little storm of a quaint exhaust fan. She was boogieing between the feet of Tina and Bablu. Tina has put some onions and ginger in the mixer’s jar while fondling Queekwee’s tummy with her toes. Suddenly electricity bungled.
‘We haven’t had a good tea and now our lunch is also spoiled.’
‘Don’t worry; we’ll have awesome lunch.’ Bablu said.
‘How? How? How?’
‘Lets go to Mrs. Neighbor.’
‘Do you know her?
‘No but I’ll beg her for you and Umber.’
‘I’ll also beg her for Umber and you?’
‘I’m not going to beg anyone. Wait. I’ll filch lunch for three of us.’
Umber announced while skipping unannounced into dining room. His pair of boxers was full of slush and hay. His bushy chest was slender and belly was delectably a bit round. Tina got turned on. She cuddled him. Kissed him on his belly.
‘Its not going to be fulfilled with kisses Tina.’
‘We’ve to do something’ Bablu suggested.


continued

1june2007

You're my papier-mâché doll. I keep you under my pillow.
I don't sleep because I fear may be while sleeping; I can crush you.
Then sometimes I dream without being slept. I know I'll lose my papier-mâché doll someday. I've cried about it so many times and my tears are making my papier-mâché doll wet and weak. Why God has made tears with water, salt and fears, sorrows. Why tears are not made with sunshine, and air, laughers. Someday I'll come to meet my papier-mâché doll in a maternity room. I'm fool. And my doll is dumb with her melodrama.

i don't know date

For my pumpkin
I’m soon going to marry a leaf of asparagus and I’m writing this letter in hope that you will soon find your tamarind.
And for all the salts and sugars between us.
And for mustard, asafoetida and cinnamon we shared.
And for the home we made in ‘Alice in wonderland’.
And for being strawberries and kiwis for each other.

And in hope that someday pumpkin will have babies like plums.
And in hope that we will not die of love but we’ll live.


Forever yours {temporarily}
Your pepper
Umber